I’m at the Carrizo Plain National Monument, gonna stay one more day to try and located a huge blue bloom I saw from ahigh (found it: along Soda Lake Rd approaching Elkhord south). If not, this one below is very pretty and I'll go spend some time there at dusk/dawn.

I’m really liking the Fujifilm camera profiles—best in the business*—and my intent is to show some other examples (including some with a focus on B&W) once I return. See the first effort I made on that in Comparing 7 Color and 5 Monochrome ACR Camera Profiles. I also find it intriguing to verify whether the results from RAW indeed match the results from in-camera JPEG. One experiment with the ACROS-G profile showed identical results, except that the version from raw had more fine detail.

* There are also various Sony camera profiles, but I find that the color is not as well done as with the Fujifilm profiles. With regards to "better color", this is not what I’m saying per se; I’m just saying that the canned profiles produce good color with one easy choice. This is not the same as “better color” from a camera.

Along Hurricane/Crocker Springs Rd, a dirt road that goes up over the hills. This is the best hillside display that I observed anywhere. Pity to not also have oranges and blues, but each species has its preferences.

This display is the best to see as of today (March 22). I shot this as I arrived, ascending Elkhorn Rd from Maricopa (ruts not suitable for passenger cars, use SUV) then turning onto Soda Lake Road; this vista unveils itself shortly thereafter. Since a passenger car could well get stuck in soft sand, there is about 1% as much traffic here as on the main thoroughfare.

As the sun descends, I’d light to shoot it again, but without the SUV presence. The cloud shadows add drama with moment-to-moment variation, a different shot even seconds later, but later they disappeared and left only clear blue sky. This stitched image using Astia/Soft; Velvia/Vivid is just too strong an effect.